$re = '/^(?:\d+(?:\?(?:\([\da-z]+\))?|[A-Z]+) ?)+$/m';
$str = '3A 1?(1) 2?(2) 3?(a) 4?(4) 5?(a) 6?(ii) 7?
4 6?(1) 7?(2) 8?(a) 9?(4) 10?(a) 11?(ii) 12? ';
preg_match_all($re, $str, $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER, 0);
// Print the entire match result
var_dump($matches);
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php